Jose Mojica Marins has long between in a legend in his native Brazil but his reputation has taken some time to slowly filter down to horror and exploitation fans worldwide. He's best known as his evil alter ego Coffin Joe (Ze do Caixao) via a series of movies beginning with 'At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul' in the 60s, as well as TV and comics. In 'The End Of Man' Marins doesn't play Coffin Joe, instead he's Finis Hominis a mysterious figure who emerges naked from the ocean, then wanders around the streets becoming involved in the lives of various people. He is arrested, escapes, becomes a media sensation and eventually for many a kind of messiah. I watched the movie on a Brazilian DVD with laughably inept subtitles which added another surreal layer to an already out there movie. My favourite bits are where Finis Hominis encounters a group of very irritating hippies who exclaim things like "Finis Hominis, you're the man!", "The birds lives and the children are dressed with the best fabric!", and (my favourite) "Freedom, freedom, and hurrah to free love!". If you've seen any of the Coffin Joe movies you know that Marins is capable of very strange movies on minuscule budgets. 'The End Of Man' is even stranger! I wouldn't say it's the best Marins movie I've seen but it's definitely the oddest. It's even odder than 'Awakening Of The Beast', and that's saying a lot! It's probably not the best place to start if you haven't seen any Coffin Joe before. On the other hand it isn't strictly a Coffin Joe movie so if you like weird and wonderful films that aren't necessarily horror and you get the chance to watch it do so. The more Marins movies I see, the more I am amazed. Coffin Joe deserves to be spoken of in the same breathe as Russ Meyer and Jess Franco, those other two masters of b-grade surrealism. His movies are like Jodorowsky on a Herschell Gordon Lewis budget!
